The Long Shadow of the Civil War

The Long Shadow of the Civil War

In his review of The Long Shadow of the Civil War: Southern Dissent and Its Legacies, published July 14, 2010 in The Nation magazine, Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, wrote the following:

One of the more fascinating figures Bynum discusses is Newt Knight, the leader of an armed band of Unionists in Jones County who lived with a black woman and became “the patriarch of an extensive mixed-race community.” Bynum relates his long, unsuccessful campaign for monetary compensation from the federal government for his wartime activities. She also explores the fate of his mixed-race children and grandchildren. Some identified as people of color; some disappeared into white society. One descendant, Davis Knight, served in the Army during World War II, married a white woman in 1946 and two years later was convicted in Mississippi of the crime of miscegenation. The Confederacy certainly cast a long shadow.

Long Shadow of the Civil War is a study of community, kinship, and war that highlights Southerners who defied the norms of their society. Here, you will meet men like Newt Knight of the “Free State of Jones,” and women such as Caroline Moore of the North Carolina Quaker Belt, who forcibly rejected the “Lost Cause” of the Confederacy.

This study demolishes the image of a solid (white) South with histories of Southerners who engaged in interracial relationships that forged deep ties of kinship among people of European, African, and Native Americans ancestry, while living in a world steeped in unequal relations of power.

Typically, television, movies, novels—and even mainstream newscasts—present us with white southerners who take unusual pride in ancestry, revere military traditions, and glory in the causes of both the American Revolution and Civil War. Likewise, racial segregation is frequently emphasized, with black and brown Southerners accordingly presented within the historical contexts of slavery, segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement. Long Shadow of the Civil War recognizes the validity of such histories, but takes us beyond the stereotypical South by focusing on Southerners who went against type.

This book is the culmination of twenty-five years of research (much of which appears on this blog), including Civil War dissenters in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Texas. The North Carolina Piedmont, or “Quaker Belt,” the Mississippi Piney Woods, and the “Big Thicket” region of Hardin County, East Texas, form the geographic bases for eight individual essays that span the years 1861-1948. In these essays, you will meet Southern men and women who opposed the Confederacy, who rejected conventional politics and religion, or who refused to accept race-based citizenship. Many fought with force for their beliefs, earning labels for themselves such as renegade, outlaw, radical, or deviant.

In some essays, I combine two or all three of the regions for comparative purposes, or to explore a common theme or story. What connects all of them, however, are themes of community, family, and place. Whether about North Carolina women who protested against Confederate soldiers, or Newt Knight’s efforts to gain compensation from the U.S. Government for having supported the Union, or Warren J. Collins, the Texas Unionist who evolved into a New South populist, then socialist, or the multiracial Knight community in Mississippi that emerged from anti-Confederate collaboration between blacks and whites, each essay features ordinary people whose lives were transformed by their responses to civil war, freedom from slavery, reconstruction of the nation, racial segregation, and the “New South” that arose from the ashes of war.

NOTE: If you visit Renegade South’s “Long Shadow of the Civil War” category, you’ll find posts that delve into the contents of the book. Below are selected reviews that appeared shortly after its publication. Following the reviews are links to interviews in which I discuss the themes of the book. This book is available for purchase here or here or here, in hardback, paperback, and digital formats.

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This is truly fascinating, Vikki. I look forward to the publication of your book. Again, I was beginning to believe I had dreamed my own history until I started to read your blog. Thank you for the twenty five years you have spent researching your subject matter. What I know of my own family’s involvement in the Civil War comes from oral history told to me by my grandmother, my grandmother’s sister, and my grandmother’s cousins. Although many stories were embellished, the core stories proved to be true, and so I have within living memory a record of the past. It is truly refreshing to know that that record is one of many similar records, since, as I told you in an earlier comment, my ancestors were definitely not “conventional” southerners. It’s nice to know that I am not alone, and that there are other renegades out there. Thanks again, Vikki.

Thanks, Sherree. The Long Shadow of the Civil War is my effort to publish the myriad stories about people and families of the South that I found scattered over the years in state and federal records, folklore accounts, and, as in your case, family histories passed down through the years in the form of storytelling. Instead of doing a book about one particular region, I decided to combine all three communities in essays that each focus on a different, but related, topic of the Civil War Era South. This proved a unique way to show how broadly relevant local community stories can be. Hopefully, the more people see their family’s experiences mirrored back, the more they will come forward, as you did, with their own stories. Over time, perhaps our folks won’t seem so unconventional, but simply part of a broad spectrum of human experiences.

Vikki, Fascinating! I believe you are correct, that white Southerners are often assumed to have supported the Confederate Cause during the Civil War. I have witnessed that in all my living in the north, and find myself defending some of the issues you raise. I had the privilege of knowing Robert Penn Warren through my father, for they were good friends, and from them learned a little more about the south that was never taught in history books. We need you to write a book for schools to use as they teach American history!

My major goal in writing this book is to see it used in the classroom by teachers who seek to bring truth rather than myth to our understanding of southerners in general and the southern Civil War homefront in particular. The book also takes us well beyond the war to demonstrate its long term effects.

Vikki, I don’t think I’ve ever looked forward with such anticipation to any work finally making it to print, except maybe my own. On second thought, I’m looking forward to yours even more. By the time my books were in print, I already knew what was in them. With yours, I can hardly wait to learn more about my favorite topic from one of the very few leading lights of the field. Thanks for all your wonderful efforts.

Thank you so much for your encouragement and kind words of interest, David. As you know, I am a great admirer of your own work on Civil War dissenters, and I greatly appreciate the respect you have shown for mine.

I just finished reading The Long Shadow of the Civil War. The book is, quite simply, brilliant. Thank you for writing it.

I recently discovered that some of my ancestors who migrated from North Carolina to Virginia, rather than migrating the other way, were either, themselves, Moravians, or were intimately connected through mutual relatives and “kinship ties” as you phrase it, to Moravians. I don’t know enough about these ancestors yet to make a connection to the history that you have written. There may, in fact, be no connection. The point that a possibility exists that there could be a connection, though, is a product of your research for this reader. I didn’t even know that these ancestors were German, much less that they were Moravians, because their name had been Anglicized. Then, from there, I knew absolutely nothing about the Moravians. What I did know is that a long legacy of dissent has existed in my family for generations. It is just fascinating to discover that that legacy is rooted in history.

Beyond my personal history, you have not only opened up avenues of thought; you have successfully implemented a sophisticated technique of writing that offers a way to begin to create a new national narrative of the Civil War that far exceeds the boundaries of interpretative approach, by not taking an interpretative approach, but by meticulously, consistently, and brilliantly documenting the history. In other words, if you have an interpretative approach, I don’t know what it is. That is not always true in either popular or scholarly works, and certainly not in the responses to those works by non-professionals, such as myself, so that is not a criticism of others, just the observation of one reader.

Theories come and go; history remains. Newt Knight, Warren Collins, Jaspar Collins, Rachel Knight, and Anna Knight were always who they were, no matter who portrayed them to others in a manner that served the needs of the narrative being presented–particularly the Lost Cause narrative, and its twin, the narrative of a virtuous North. (Interesting that both Southern Lost Cause adherents and Northern journalists portrayed Newt Knight as a “hillbilly”.) Neither the North nor the South was “virtuous“, as scholars know. If virtue is to be claimed in our national narrative of the Civil War; it can only be claimed by the African American community. I also found it interesting that Anna Knight faced regional bias when she moved to an urban area, in addition to gender and racial discrimination.

Thank you so much, Sherree, for taking the time to write such a full and personal appraisal of Long Shadow of the Civil War. My reason for researching and writing history is to help us to connect with our pasts and, hopefully, understand our present a bit more clearly for having done so. You make me feel like I am succeeding in that goal.

You’re welcome, Vikki. You have succeeded. Thank you again for your scholarship, and for making that scholarship available to the public through your published works, and through Renegade South. Sherree

While slavery was absolutely wrong and all the mistreatment and horror that was inflicted upon those who suffered by it, I’ve read that only a small percentage of Southern plantations/farmers actually owned slaves. The Southerner who did own slaves knew the practice was nearing an end and their days were numbered — without the Union’s intervention. I’m from Boston and I sympathize with the South during the Reconstruction period. Was it okay for Sherman to burn a swathe of destruction to the sea to “humble” the South? To pillage, rape and murder Southerners in the name of freeing slaves? I believe the war was more about collecting tax revenue from cotton production, and less about freeing slaves. And again, Sherman’s scorched earth policy was detestable. I would have been a Copperhead looking for a mutual resolution to end slavery while saving 970,000 lives in the process.

Thanks for taking time to comment. You are correct that most Southerners did not own slaves–in fact, only about 25% of southern households included slaves according to the 1860 census.

I don’t agree with you, however, that “The Southerner who did own slaves knew the practice was nearing an end and their days were numbered — without the Union’s intervention.” That may have been true for some, but not for those slaveholders who fought desperately to open the western territories to slavery, and who finally went to war to save their institution.

The war did not have to be about FREEING the slaves to be caused by slavery. It’s true that most white Northerners did not intend to free the slaves when they took up arms against the South. Yet many Northerners WERE concerned about slavery’s expansion, especially in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision which declared that slaveholders could take their slaves anywhere in the United States. Northern Republicans opposed the expansion of slavery, a political stance that can’t be separated from the economic issues of the day.

As for Sherman’s policy and the North’s “pillage, rape, and murder,”–that’s what happens in war, on both sides, no matter what the “cause”.

For all the tragic elements of the Civil War–and there are many–it’s well to remember that it was a revolution for enslaved Americans who won their freedom, as there is no evidence that slavery was going to end peacefully. This revolution was tragically thwarted by a violent backlash that eventually enriched both northern and southern elites, but which disfranchised freedpeople and left them (and many southern whites) impoverished.

Vikki, I admire your measured and well-though response to Richard. I am always troubled by people who seem to either not know, or prefer to re-write, history in an attempt to glorify what is an inglorious stain on our national history, even today.
Richard Sarno wrote “The Southerner who did own slaves knew the practice was nearing an end and their days were numbered — without the Union’s intervention.” However, the “Declaration of Causes Of Seceding States” by the only four states publishing such declarations seem to suggest the opposite. The entire declarations can be read here:http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html
Mississippi’s is but one example:
Mississippi
[Copied by Justin Sanders from “Journal of the State Convention”, (Jackson, MS: E. Barksdale, State Printer, 1861), pp. 86-88]
A Declaration of the Immediate Causes which Induce and Justify the Secession of the State of Mississippi from the Federal Union.
“In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. . . “
Richard also asks: “Was it okay for Sherman to burn a swathe of destruction to the sea to “humble” the South? To pillage, rape and murder Southerners in the name of freeing slaves?”
While historians and non-historians may disagree with Sherman’s methods, I think all would agree Sherman was effective in bringing the disastrous war to a quicker conclusion.
And regarding the “excesses” of Sherman and other Union Troops, I question the veracity of unproven self-serving southern claims. Here is one early example of the hoax of one “yankee letter” concerning Sherman’s soldiers, edited for brevity.
“Rev. J. WILLIAM JONES, D. D.,
Secretary Southern Historical Society, Richmond, Va.:
DEAR SIR,–In the number of the SOUTHERN HISTORICAL SOCIETY PAPERS for March, 1884, under the heading, “How they made South Carolina ‘Howl’–Letter from one of Sherman’s Bummers,” you publish what purports to be “a letter found in the streets of Columbia after the army of General Sherman
had left.”
The contents of the letter are enough to satisfy any unprejudiced mind that it could not have been written by any officer of General Sherman’s command–except, possibly, as the broadest kind of a hoax. But conceding, for the moment, that such a letter might have been written by “one of ‘Sherman’s Bummers,'” it is demonstrable that the letter under consideration is not genuine. If any such letter exists, it is a forgery. . . . But when, as certainly seems the case in this instance, nothing but the provocation and perpetuation of ill-feeling and bitterness can result, I submit that a periodical of the character of the SOUTHERN HISTORICAL PAPERS might–as I am happy to see it does, in most instances–find better material than reprinting from obscure newspapers, matter which throws no real light on any single act or motive during the whole of the great contest.
Your periodical is taken by a society of which I am a member, but I did not happen to see the March number earlier, or I should have earlier written
you. I do not write now for publication–though to that I have no objection–but simply to give you the facts, and let your own sense of justice decide what you will do.
Very respectfully yours,
HENRY STONE, Late Brevet-Colonel U. S. Volunteers, and A. A. G. Army of the Cumberland. End”

Vikki, I forgot to provide these links in my earlier post. Just two examples I like to use when confronted with people who still love to demonize William T. Sherman. These two individuals say it much better than I, and anyone who is interested should read these two articles in place of the short quotes I give here:
“This Southern hierarchy not only assumed that those of a different color were nothing more than property, but also provoked the “lower classes” of Southern men to serve as cannon fodder in the great effort to preserve their way of life. So it was with great zeal that Sherman put his Grand Army of the West to work on destroying the roots of this great evil. While Sherman’s purpose was noble, let us not miss the tactical brilliance he employed while pursuing it.” From “The True Legacy of William Tecumseh Sherman by Rich Policz”
at:http://52ndnysv.com/7thny.html
and
“Sherman’s march was an integral part of a Union strategy to overwhelm Confederate resources and cause Southern resistance to implode upon itself. . . The object of the campaign was not specifically to take Southern lives, but to break their will to continue the rebellion: “We are not only fighting hostile armies, but a hostile people, and must make old and young, rich and poor, feel the hard hand of war, as well as their organized armies.” ”
from “Are the Media Right to Single Out William Tecumseh Sherman As the Most Reckless Civil War General of Them All?” by Michael Taylor
at:http://hnn.us/articles/839.html
By the way, it’s interesting that as early as 1867 the “lost cause” was already fashionable in southern circles, as in the book “The Lost Cause” by Edward Pollard mentioned in this last article.
“Historian Gaines M. Foster observed that at Confederate reunions held in 1895, “Southerners almost delighted in recounting the tales of violence, destruction, and thievery that they claimed the armies of Sherman, Sheridan, and other northern generals directed at civilians.” Thus, the popular Southern image of William Tecumseh Sherman was that of a pariah to be wholeheartedly admonished.”

Thank you Tim, for taking the time to publish evidence against the persistent idea that the causes of the Civil War had nothing to do with slavery.

One would think that words such as those of the Mississippi secessionists, which you quote in your first message, would end the matter: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery– the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. . . “

How much more blunt must motives be made?

You’re right; the myths of the Lost Cause were being written within five years of the war’s end, though they really came into their own in the 1890s.

Vikki, thanks for your comments. By the way I just finished checking my last message and discovered, egad, the link on “the true legacy…” should have been this one:http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/guest/06/policz/sherman.html
I hope if anyone went to the link given in error they enjoyed reading about the 7th NY militia!
Tim

My “thing”, you suggest, is trying to “subjugate the South all over again”? I guess that depends on how you define the “South.” I don’t remember the slaveholders as having been “subjugated”; seems to me that that was the fate of African Americans in the antebellum South. For a brief period during Reconstruction, however, freed people and Southern Unionists held power. They were the victims of one of the most vicious counter-revolutions in U.S. history. Is this brief period of Reconstruction the one in which YOUR favored South was “subjugated”?

Your remark makes no sense to me, and it’s clear that we have moved beyond the point of historical disagreement. At this point, when sparring replaces discourse, I think it’s best to end the discussion.

I still receive updates on this post via email. Imagine my shocked reaction when I opened my mail and read this exchange.. Mr Sarno would do well to actually read your posts…or better still, move on, as you so politely suggested.

Tim, I enjoyed your well thought out comment. The secessionists were, indeed, quite clear about their motives. Also, General Sherman was vilified by white Southerners in the initial revision of history that took place after the war–ie, the Lost Cause version of history. However (and you most likely know this) Sherman’s legacy in US history remains ambivalent, because Sherman helped to implement the “hard hand of war” in the West against the Plains nations. The subjugation of Indigenous nations in the West was no more a noble cause than the war fought by white Southerners to preserve the institution of slavery. All too often in our attempts to restore Sherman in our national narrative and to overcome the legacy of the Lost Cause myth, another shameful stain on our history is ignored, or justified.

Vikki, sorry to see that you were subjected to such invective. You certainly do not deserve it.

Your point about the federal government’s policies and war against the Plains Indians following the Civil War is an important one. It is also important, as you show, to not turn history into a morality play where one side is gloriously righteous and the other side the epitomy of evil.

When we move away from a white hat–black hat version of the Civil War we can see that the powerful political/economic elites of both the North and the South struggled to advance their own interests. Whether slavery would be allowed to continue expanding was at the center of the conflicting economic interests that led to the Civil War.

Yet, while it’s true that the Republican party was not an abolitionist party, at the same time, slaves, free people of color, and abolitionists never quit pushing for the war to result in an end to slavery. And because emancipation proved an effective war measure, they finally achieved that goal.

However, if the Republican Party as a whole had supported freedom and racial equality, the Southern Democratic Party’s counter-revolution, which resulted in racial disfranchisement and segregation, would never have succeeded. But it did succeed, and instead of a democratic revolution, we had an all too familiar story of economic advancement taking precedence over human rights. Republicans and Democrats alike turned their eyes West and proceeded to dispossess Indians of their lands “for their own good.” The argument that Indians would be better civilized if they gave up their lands and cultural ways was, sadly, a dress rehearsal for U.S. policies toward Cuba and the Philippines in the wake of the Spanish American War of 1898.

Between 1890 and 1920, those who objected to the above political turn of events sometimes joined the Populist, Socialist, or Progressive parties. Others joined the Anti-Imperialist League. Most simply disagreed with the major parties, publicly or privately. These dissenters were Northerners and Southerners, white, black, and multiracial. Some of them are the folks I write about in The Long Shadow of the Civil War.

Thanks so much for the insightful–and educational–follow up. I have said this before, but it bears repeating: I learn more about the Civil War from you in a couple of paragraphs, than I do in reading entire books, in many cases. That reveals quite a grasp of the subject matter, on your part, and a true gift for teaching. Hope you are happy in your new home, and that you continue to blog. Sherree

This is a classic example of extrapolating a preconceived notion from fragmented data!

To my knowledge, which is extensive, the Collins Family never owned slaves … or particularly cared about those who did. They were loyal to the Confederacy; a situation which was accepted and admired by their Jones, County, Mississippi neighbors. They had a very large family of seven sons.

One son, Warren and his father, Stacy immigrated to Texas after the War. They remained poor and did not dabble in politics or social issues.

Warren’s son, V.A. Collins was nicknamed “Yank” because only “Yankee boys” could be so plump, healthy and rosy cheeked that he couldn’t be a Southern kid.

V.A. learned to read and write at age 19 subsequent to running away from home as a result of a dispute with his father, Warren, over a couple of hogs.

V.A. worked at night and attended a one room school house during the day with children from Minneola, TX. His teacher inspired him to become a teacher himself after two years of “learning”.

V.A. studied law, became a Senator and was Chairman of the Texas Educational Commission for the next 40 years.

His son, Carr became one of the wealthiest men in Texas. He personally led the effort to intergrated Dallas, built the first Negro housing development [in Richardson, TX the wealthiest suburb of Dallas]. Carr served on the Board of Trustees of Bishop College in Marshall, Texas. He donated all the land and many buildings for a Bishop College Campus and moved them to Dallas.

Carr’s father-in-law was a disabled Confederate Veteran who HATED Yankees and wouldn’t allow any into his home … ever! Carr and his wife Ruth, as are all their descendants were always extremely proud of both their Confederate heritage AND the extensive work for peaceful intergration in Texas.

It’s absurd to think that any member of this family ran away from it’s heritage or compromised the values of themselves or their ancestors.

The members of the Collins family have many, many Confederate ancestors.

Thanks for posting your opinions. I agree with several of the facts you’ve stated and disagree with others. As for your statements that, 1) the Collinses (I refer here to Simeon and sons, Warren, Jasper, Riley, Stacy Jr., and Newton Carroll) were “loyal to the Confederacy,” and that, 2) Warren J. Collins “did not dabble in politics”–the facts clearly show otherwise. The Collins’s Civil War records are documented in my book, Free State of Jones; Warren’s political activities are documented in my book, Long Shadow of the Civil War.

Having read some of your writings I’ll acknowledge your claim to extensive knowledge of the Collins family. However, in reading your post I am reminded that “extensive” should never be confused with “total” or “infallible.” Your emotional charges, at least as regards the Jones County, MS member of the Collins family, are simply at strong variance with easily verified historical records.

1) “the Collins family never owned slaves”: I am descended from one of Stacy Collins’s daughters: Sarah Collins Walters Parker. In 1854, following the death of her husband George W. Walters and three of her children, Sarah married a slave owner named James Parker, but left him shortly thereafter. The 1860 slave schedule (Jones County) shows her as the owner of a female slave. Other information suggests that she purchased a male slave soon thereafter. Despite this, Sarah is reported to have provided shelter to members of the renegade Newt Knight Band which, after all, contained two of her brothers and several nephews.

2) “They were loyal to the Confederacy”: Jasper Collins deserted from the 7th Battn MS in Oct 1862 due to his anger over the passage of the 20 slave law, which granted slave owners one military exemption per 20 slaves owned. He joined the Newt Knight Band, as did his brother Simeon and several of Simeon’s sons. This was documented by Newt Knight’s son Thomas, by Ethel Knight in “Echo of the Black Horn,” and by Jasper’s own testimony when called as a witness in Newt Knight’s 1895 attempt to receive a Union pension (Q. “If you belonged to any other organization in time of the war state what it was and what position you held if any.” A. “I belonged to what was called Newton Knight’s Company and was recognized as 1st sergeant of the Company.”)

Shortly before his death in 1913, “The Jones County News” interviewed Jasper and reported:

“Mr. Collins says he served six months in the army, when he was glad to get out, being strongly opposed to the war, and when a bill was passed by the Confederate Congress letting every man with 20 negroes go home, a number of them decided to fight no longer to keep the blacks as slaves. They decided it was a rich man’s war, and a poor man’s fight, and thought that those who wonted (sic) slaves should remain at the front, and not come home and make the fellow who never owned negroes battle to keep them slaves.”

Jasper’s brother Riley James Collins went to New Orleans and enlisted in the Union 1st New Orleans on 30 Apr 1864. He died four months later and is buried in Chalmette National Cemetery. His six orphan children were raised by his older brother Vinson (the MS one).

I could go on but it would seem to serve no purpose if your research is selective and your motives ideological rather than historical. My own genealogical research into the Collins family was done without any preconceived notations about heritage or values that needed protection. It would certainly have been more politically correct if my ancestor Sarah had not been the single Collins sibling to be a slave owner. But in my mind history is about following the facts where ever they lead. And I don’t think two individuals as strong, independent, and forthright as Jasper and Sarah Collins would have wanted it any other way.

I will only add to Ed Payne’s succinct but thorough description of Collins Unionism in Jones County, MS., that Warren J. Collins was equally proud of having supported the Union from the Big Thicket of Texas. From Mississippi to Texas, these brothers were principled Unionists, their refusal to support the Confederacy perfectly in line with their disdain for slavery.

Hi Vikki, I heard you speak at the Museum of History in Raleigh several years ago. I love your book about “Unruly Women” and used quotes from it in my own book published last year called “Blood and War at my Doorstep: North Carolina Civilians in the War between the States.” It is in two volumes and is non-fiction. I cover a great deal of dissention in the book. I’m looking forward to buying your new book too. How do I subscribe to your blog?

It’s nice to meet you again here on Renegade South! How well I remember that evening at Raleigh’s Museum of History; I had a wonderful time. (It was more than “several” years ago, I’m afraid.)

Congratulations on your new book! I certainly need to read it, and I’m sure many of this blog’s readers will want to as well.

As for subscribing to my blog, I think it’s pretty easy. Just scroll down to the white box framed in blue that always appears on the right side of Renegade South’s opening page. Click “follow my blog,” and follow any instructions that may follow.